The Jedi And The Warrior

The Curse Of The Chosen

They cleared a small chamber near the meditation room for his viewing.

There would be no funeral, no ceremony for the celebration of his life, no solemn farewell, no gathering of those who had loved him. He was not among the greats of the world, nor had his life been marked by heroic deeds or great sacrifices. He would not be remembered in song, or occupy a page in the history books; his memory would vanish from the world, becoming nothing more than a single footprint upon the sands of time, slowly to fade into the mists of forgetfulness.

Flyra had spent hours trying to scrub the blood off her hands, her breath coming in short gasps as tears streamed down her cheeks. She had stood by and done nothing. Said nothing, when one word from her and she could have saved Ben's life.

He was dead because of her.

And though she knew it, though she repeated it to herself in the quiet of the communal bathrooms, the scent of lavender and eucalyptus surrounding and soothing her, she could not quite understand it. Could not quite reconcile herself with a murderer.

This was who she was — selfish, cowardly, a failure at the final test. A murderer, that's what she was.

Fate-less, and accursed.

Flyra's hands, now clean, raw and red with her desperate scrubbing, shook as they braced against the sink. She looked up, catching the reflection of herself in the mirror. Her face was gaunt, haggard, streaked with dirt and blood. Tear tracks cut through the grime, long streaks of silver. Her eyes were raw and bloodshot, and her hair was tangled and matted with blood from where she had run her hands through it.

There was no life in her eyes, no hope, and she'd lost weight since setting off for Dantooine. She looked about as hollow as she felt.

Flyra turned on the tap once again, the gush of water ice-cold as it parted over her cupped hands. She let it gather in her palms, waiting until it was overflowing into the basin, then buried her face in it. The breath was knocked out of her when she hit the frigid water, but she scrubbed her hands over and over down her face, scraping at the dirt, the dried blood, the evidence of everything she was, everything she had done. She did it again, attacking her skin until she could barely feel her cheeks under the freezing cold.

When she looked up again, shivering, droplets of water dripped from her chin and landed in the basin, but her face was clean. She couldn't do anything about the hollowness in her eyes, the red that rimmed them. Instead she ran the tap once more, ducking her whole head into the basin so that her hair became drenched and heavy on her scalp. Flyra squeezed it out, then dragged her fingers through it, over and over, relishing in the pain as she snagged against knots that had not been treated for days. When she was done, when her scalp throbbed and her fingers could slide easily through the still-sodden strands, she flipped it over her shoulder and left the bathroom.

She could not bring herself to look into the mirror again.

She didn't know where Obi-Wan had gone after he carried Ben to the viewing chamber. She had not tried to help, not when she could see him fighting to hide the grief that threatened to drive him to his knees. Instead she had fled, locking herself in the bathroom and hiding from a world that she knew would condemn her.

She turned her steps towards his chambers, needing to apologise, to talk to him, to do something with this weight of guilt that pressed upon her chest. But she paused, remembering the slash of blood across his own chest, the wound that had opened in his arm. He should be in the medical wing — he needed urgent treatment. She changed course, heading instead for the distant tang of sterilising chemicals wending through the halls from the medical wing.